Tuesday, January 29, 2008

so anyway, who better to advise you on climate change than someone who, when in a position to do something about it, mostly just passed and hoped it would go away?

the cynical among us would suggest that seven-figure "advisory" roles are how the business world rewards politicians who do them favours, but you won't catch me saying that. no way would i suggest, for an instant, that the best person to advise you on the implications of climate change would not be someone who spent a lot of time trying to avoid them, pushing cosmetic measures without actually taking any real action. i would never say that a scientist might be better (or cheaper).

of course i know that these are the same cocksizing bellends who think that the size of their bonus says something about their worth as human beings, fools who cannot find a fad they don't like (so ably parodied in American psycho, you might recall). it's all, we have Blair and ING doesn't for these fuckwits.

as if!

so anyway, as requested, a brief note follows on "as if" and "as though".

there is nothing to be dogmatic about here. usage is fluid. but the careful may distinguish "as if" and "as though" as follows.

obviously, use "as if!" when you want to express incredulity. no other phrase does it so effectively.

the key difference between "as if" and "as though" would seem to be that the former is generally used to described impossible states, the latter to describe possible, but not actual, states.

examples:

"She spoke to me as if I were a child.""She spoke to me as though she was drunk."

easy. or is it?

the latter is often rendered by "like" in spoken English, but using "like" in even slightly formal contexts, which would include nearly all writing, would be a terrible solecism, making you prey to pedants, who would feast on your carcass as if you were a boiled chicken.

notice that the last part of that sentence is a bit awkward. you could and probably should use "as though" there, even though it's not possible for you to be a chicken, because "as though" does not have quite the restricted use that i suggested. it is used for comparisons of states, to create similes between them. one state is always, i think, what you might call the indicative state -- how things are -- and the other is the state compared to. "as if" can do similar work, but its "subjunctive" state -- if we can call it that -- must be impossible.

in constructions such as "as if i could do that!", which express impossibility, "as though" is entirely incorrect. however, "he looked at me as though i could do it" would be correct, because you are describing how he is looking at you in terms of a state that doesn't pertain but that you claim to be similar. "As if" would be entirely wrong here.

i hope that hasn't muddied the waters of these terms too much. as if your old buddy dr zen would do that, eh!

as if!

so anyway, as requested, a brief note follows on "as if" and "as though".

there is nothing to be dogmatic about here. usage is fluid. but the careful may distinguish "as if" and "as though" as follows.

obviously, use "as if!" when you want to express incredulity. no other phrase does it so effectively.

the key difference between "as if" and "as though" would seem to be that the former is generally used to described impossible states, the latter to describe possible, but not actual, states.

examples:

"She spoke to me as if I were a child.""She spoke to me as though she was drunk."

easy. or is it?

the latter is often rendered by "like" in spoken English, but using "like" in even slightly formal contexts, which would include nearly all writing, would be a terrible solecism, making you prey to pedants, who would feast on your carcass as if you were a boiled chicken.

notice that the last part of that sentence is a bit awkward. you could and probably should use "as though" there, even though it's not possible for you to be a chicken, because "as though" does not have quite the restricted use that i suggested. it is used for comparisons of states, to create similes between them. one state is always, i think, what you might call the indicative state -- how things are -- and the other is the state compared to. "as if" can do similar work, but its "subjunctive" state -- if we can call it that -- must be impossible.

in constructions such as "as if i could do that!", which express impossibility, "as though" is entirely incorrect. however, "he looked at me as though i could do it" would be correct, because you are describing how he is looking at you in terms of a state that doesn't pertain but that you claim to be similar. "As if" would be entirely wrong here.

i hope that hasn't muddied the waters of these terms too much. as if your old buddy dr zen would do that, eh!

thereby

so anyway, authors have their favourite crutches that they lean on, and when you kick one away, sometimes they squeal. the guy who's written the book on the Japanese recession writes fairly well, but lapses here and there. one usage he is fond of is to use "such" where "this" or "these" is standard.

an example for you. the following is ugly:

"They paid the remittances to their mothers. Such remittances made up most of their mothers' income."

there are several ways to recast this, but the very least an editor should do is replace "such" with "these", which is the correct word to use for this type of reference. "such" should have very limited use in good writing.

the author also loves "thereby", so much so that he complains at my removing it in every instance, even though it never adds an iota of meaning. he claims that it indicates causality, and readers will not understand causality if it's omitted. he is wrong.

take the following:

"He paid his mother a remittance, thereby making her happy."

this is the sort of thing he writes, yet exactly the same meaning is conveyed by:

"He paid his mother a remittance, making her happy."

it is a convention of English that a second clause in a sentence is dependent on the previous clause, particularly when the second clause is introduced with an "-ing" word. it is one of the main uses of "-ing clauses" that they imply causality. it's close to impossible to parse the sentence i give as an example in any other way, and i do not believe any native speaker would have any problem with the sentence.

why does it mean this though? it seems hard to figure out but looking at a parallel structure makes it clear:

"Here are the soldiers, marching in the rain."

here there is no causality, rather a descriptive phrase. the participle describes the preceding noun. (compare "he looked at soldiers marching in the rain", where again "marching" is a participle, not a gerund.)

participles are adjectives. they generally describe nouns in one way or another. so in this example, "marching" describes the soldiers. but where is the noun that "making" describes? is it "remittances"? no, this doesn't make sense. nor does "they" or "mothers".

the noun is actually understood. you could call it an implicit noun, if you like. it is "paying". gerunds mean "the act of...", and here "paying" means "the act of paying", which is what the first clause describes.

this, it seems to me, is why this usage strikes me as so wrong, and why i'll fight the author all the way on it. the construction is elegant without "thereby"; it echoes the similar use of participles in Latin. "thereby" makes it lumber, thereby ruining the flow of the text.

"turned things round"? you could equally say "took us down like a stone in a pond, and lumbered us with a team overstuffed with players who will turn out only to be competitive in League One and fucked off because he wasn't up to the job."

yeah, we'd be winning the league if we had our 15 points back, but we haven't looked a class above, and Wise leaves during a bad run. he's done okay, but a few more bad results and we're in the playoff scrap. it should go without saying that another year in League One is a disaster for Leeds.

and he's Chelsea scum. let's not forget that. okay, Bates' fine grasp of dodgy business practice has put us in a lot better shape than we were in a couple of years ago, but that doesn't mean we want to have his babies, the horrible Blue fucktard.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

so anyway, as Paul Krugman shows, the stimulus will not stimulate much. surprise surprise, the money mostly goes to people who don't need it, won't spend it.

again, the Democrat centre showed its true colours. instead of passing a package that did what it says on the tin and provides stimulus, by giving money to the poorest, who will spend it, they passed something Bush would sign. some commentators think the Dems never learn: that they should pass bills Bush will have to veto, and then frame hard so that he can't spin it as their fault. but they aren't actually at war with Bush. they are enabling the same agenda.

this matters to the rest of us, because we suffer the fallout of an ailing American economy. although it is well-deserved rough justice that Americans should suffer the outcome of their heedless greed, unfortunately we get it in the neck too.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

peacocks

so anyway, something occurred to me at the Big Day Out, a potential answer to one of the mysteries of a young man's life, which can be expressed concisely as "why don't nice guys get laid?"

it puzzles young nerdy types, of which i suppose i was one at heart, that girls do not choose to go out with them. they say things like, how come they won't look at me even though i'm nice looking and i would treat them right? they say they want nice boys with a sense of humour, and i'm really quite pleasant and i'm very funny. (well, at least, we make ourselves laugh.) worse, we can plainly see that in our villages, the local hardman would pull the town's best-looking chick, even though he had practically nothing to offer a woman, his one talent being biffing other men in the head.

anyway, i'm at the Big Day Out, and many of the young men have their shirts off. by Queensland standards, it was not a hot day, and the numbers of shirtless men increased as the afternoon wore on, so that there were many more when it was cooler than there had been when it was warmer in the early afternoon.

curiously, most of these men were in the company of other men. they didn't seem interested in women, and weren't, so far as i could see, attracting women's attention. on other occasions that i've seen this behaviour, i've noticed that it's not sparked by the presence of women, nor are the men checking women out, approaching them, or doing anything to attract them at all. far from it. these boys are only interested in other boys.

and it struck me. women do not choose. men do.

when i was a teenager, one thing that really irritated me was how competitive other boys were. they were engaged, it seemed, in an endless game of oneupmanship, whose sole purpose seemed to be to seem to themselves greater than others, to elevate themselves at others' expense. not only were they competitive in a quite nasty way at sport (by which i mean they were not content to win, but needed to crow over victories and belittle the defeated -- rather than applauding others' best efforts, they valued half an effort that prevailed.), but also in every other thing. they would jostle for conversation space; they would wrestle if they could; they would engage in pointless dicksizing (literally sometimes), fistfights over absolutely nothing, drinking contests. basically anything that allowed one boy to be ranked higher than another, so that they could be sure how they were ranged, from best to worst, on whatever criteria they valued.

which were not, of course, who was wittiest (boys don't do wit), who was best looking (boys are poor judges, and vanity and fear of homosexuality do not permit them to express opinions on that anyway), who was smartest (being "clever" is no benefit to a boy, for reasons that should be apparent).

i am not going to go all evolutionary psychology on you, but i think it's reasonable to suggest that women, particularly young women, do choose men on the basis of their "fitness" (i don't mean physical fitness; i mean desirability from a broad point of view, and i do mean as providers, as fathers to some extent, as men defined as, if not a stereotype, then an archetype.) how do they find them? how do they judge our "man-ness"? well, it's tough, isn't it? we have many types of behaviour, which often give conflicting signals. when we're older, you can judge us somewhat by our status, our ability to wield power, our wealth or our apparent ability to acquire wealth (and however outmoded, these are all still measures of "man-ness" that count with some women to some extent -- i'm trying not to overstate it or generalise too broadly).

what better way than to allow the men to duke it out among themselves, then select whoever the men agree is alpha man?

all the boys with no shirts on are displaying themselves to other men. when they are acclaimed by other men, they will then pull. they are not trying, in any way, to attract women, because women do not choose. other men choose who the best specimens are, and then women compete for them.

i suppose i wish i had known this when i was 16. i was, objectively, good looking enough, and i was nice, or could be, charming, or could be, and obviously i am smart and sensitive etc etc. but girls wouldn't look at me twice. when i was younger by a couple of years, i was very quiet, gentle and reserved. this was a contrast from my preteens, when i had been much more gregarious, and, i suppose, competitive. i was very popular with the girls then.

but of course, the story does not end there. women are not entirely shallow. (big winky there, ladies.) boys like me do get girls from time to time. indeed, i pull them disproportionately when they know me well. how does that fit my thesis?

well, it's simple. it's not apparent that i am a man in the sense i am describing, at first glance. i don't take my shirt off on cloudy days; i don't like fighting; i don't wrestle if i can avoid it and i've never felt that my (entirely satisfactory) dick would be any better for being confirmed as bigger than another man's (because you don't actually gain any length in the process). but i'm smart and different. and given time, i start seeming to be much more alpha than i do at first glance. particularly if you are willing to downplay the whole wealth (have none) and status (i'm a copyeditor for fuck's sake) thing, which many people are in this day and age. online, i'm strongly competitive too, which gives me the shorter-term impact that shirtless boys are aiming at. am i too competing with other men so that i can be recognised as an alpha troll? fucking right i am. here is a medium that rewards my abilities, much as the "real world" of teenage rewards sporty boys who don't mind being battered in the face to prove a point. (note that people who answer trolling by saying "you wouldn't do that in real life" are missing the point. i wouldn't do it in real life because it would be inappropriate and unproductive, just as teenage boys find it appropriate and productive to punch each other but mostly grow out of it as they get older. it's not that they are afraid of punching -- i never have been, and i've been in fights from time to time, it's that it simply no longer has a context. calling someone a cunt in your local pub has a different meaning from calling some denizen of teh Uselessnet one. but if for some reason it started to be a means of ranking men that we competitively troll each other IRL, you can count on my becoming as fucking annoying in the local pub as i am in your comments.)

so that's my thesis. i realise that you could, were you uncharitable, consider this a sexist proposition. am i saying something bad or degrading about women? i don't think so. it's an idea about how they work, not a descriptive framework. and men, frankly, come out of my thinking worse. we are pathetic peacocks, willing to bicker, scratch and fight in ridiculous contests whose only meaning is that the winner gets to be admired by other men. except that those contests make sense if their prize is being chosen by women.

the key to it is that the qualities that boys judge each other on are not necessarily ones that appeal to women. far from it. women are not apes, or dogs, or whatever. they do not actually weigh up men by their ability at punching each other. my thesis is that they are simply not concerned with the nature of our competition, so long as we have one, and so long as we judge ourselves and clearly present winners and losers.

Friday, January 25, 2008

without going into great economic detail, the stronger measures you can do one of two things: encourage people to spend, so that more money enters circulation, and encourage businesses to invest, so that production increases, and there are more jobs for producers (you and me), which means more money passed out in income, thence more money in circulation.

so a good idea is to give money to people who don't have enough to meet their needs. they will definitely spend it.

a bad idea is to give money to people who already have enough. they will probably not spend it. even some of the middle class won't. some will pay down debt, for instance. which is nice, but it doesn't change their spending habits, unless they use the space on their credit card to spend it up again.

giving money to the wealthy is ridiculous, because they are likely to save it. this is bad. when an economy is in difficulties, you do not want people to squirrel money away. recessions happen because money is sequestered, not put into circulation.

a further problem is that increased spending may stave off the recession, but it does not fix the problems in the economy that caused the downturn in the first place.

i am working on an interesting book about the great Japanese recession of a few years back. the conventional wisdom is that it was the fault of the banks (which should ring a bell) but the author says that it was more likely caused by a fall in asset prices, which led to companies' paying debt down instead of borrowing money to invest. with no demand for money, banks could not lend it, so the usual monetary stimuli did not turn the economy round. companies will not borrow money, even at zero interest, if they are paying debt down.

it will be interesting to see whether company borrowing rises in the next year or so. if it doesn't, we're going to have a bumpy ride.

right

so anyway, i am teaching zero a lesson about rights, and it's quite instructive, so i'll share it with you.

like most Americans, zero believes he has a right to free speech in every arena because he has been granted it by the constitution of his nation. but he mistakes what a "right" is.

zero is barred from my comments. he will remain barred until he complies with a (fairly arbitrary) demand.

but doesn't he have the right to free expression? well, no, of course he doesn't. this is how rights work.

i can permit or refuse an opportunity for expression to anyone i choose. i can entirely withdraw it by not having comments, or entirely allow it by not moderating them in any form. until recently, i did the latter. i still grant the right to express yourself in my comments and encourage it, with the exception of one poster, whose comments i delete without reading. this is simply on account of his lack of intention to communicate anything. i bin him along with the other spammers. trolling is fine. i do it myself. but what's the point of trolling that has no function other than to say "i am a troll"? yeah okay, got the message.

so you have the right to free speech in my comments because i allow it. it's the same with most blogs. the owners allow you to speak in their comments, and can be said to have granted you a right to do it if they do not moderate their comments. but zero is not free.

this is how rights actually work. those empowered (me, in this instance) allow or disallow privileges to those not (you, in this instance). the right is not natural or inherent, no matter how much you whine about it. it's something negotiated. the powerful have to be made to concede rights.

but rights are often tenuous. they sometimes come with strings, and nearly always with limits. some you can only retain if you meet certain responsibilities. in a Western democracy, you have the right to liberty. but your responsibility is to obey the law. you did not negotiate most of the laws you must obey. (most are sufficiently old, in the UK at least, that not even our forebears negotiated them, because they are the customary justice of the powerful.) but this is how rights and responsibilities work. rights are ceded; responsibilities imposed. if you break the wrong law, your right to liberty is withdrawn.

so it is clear that rights are not absolute. why would they be? they are simple transactions between the powerful and the (relatively) powerless. of course, the powerless have power, usually. in the West, we are to some extent both. although power is difficult for us to wield, we could in principle change the rights we agree among ourselves, and we could change, or even overthrow, the law. in other times and places, even though one party might have been more powerful, or might have been recognised as holding power, others, each less powerful on their own, in concert had more power, even though they were not recognised as legitimately holding it. examples are the barons' revolt against King John, which led to the signing of the Magna Carta, and the second Russian Revolution, in which a power structure was torn away, and a whole new system of rights instituted.

Americans tend to believe their rights are inherent. it's easy to see why. the declaration of independence of the United States claims that it is "self-evident" that men are equal and are endowed by god with rights, which it further claims are inalienable. this contrasts strongly with the European conception of rights, embodied by Rousseau, which sees them as an outcome of a negotiation between different centres of power in the modern state. it should go without saying that the European idea is correct, and the American one completely wrong. after all, we do not have a creator, so his inability to endow us with rights is moot.

don't get me wrong. as do most liberals, i believe that some rights should be afforded all of humankind. i do not believe in rights for me and thee, but fuck the Chinee. i am a universalist in the main. i don't believe that cultural considerations should outweigh the need for universal rights. i won't list all those i believe are fundamental, but you probably have a similar list yourself, such things as the right to security of the person and the right to free association. how these rights are hedged and the responsibilities that are understood to come with them are in the main cultural matters.

zero can of course fight for his rights. he can continue to post comments, up to the point at which i'll have to moderate my comments. this happens in our world too. those with power, faced with demands for rights that they are not willing to concede--faced, you could say, with demands that they curtail their power: because that is another way to see the concession of a right, the voluntary (or sometimes not so voluntary) curtailment of power for the benefit of those you have power over, sometimes have to impose their power much more widely than they had wished because some will not accept the responsibilities they have imposed, and sometimes the imposition of power is irksome for those who have it, and they find it more burdensome to impose power than not to bother (as anyone who has kids will tell you). i should make it clear that i do not believe either that those who are imposed on must accept responsibilities that they consider unjust, or that they in any way become "unentitled" to rights because they refuse them. because i believe rights are generally negotiated (in a freer society such as ours; although i think that this is an outcome of a power struggle among different factions in society, which has led to a negotiated settlement over time) or ceded (in less free societies) or both, there is no question of entitlement.

and here is an interesting thing. no matter how "entitled" zero feels to his right to free expression, he cannot have it. he simply has too little power. he can force me to moderate my comments to impose my power on him, but he cannot force me to let him speak. he does so if i permit it, and not if i don't. in turn, i have this power because it is ceded to me by blogger, against whom i in turn am powerless. (it's a bit like vassalage, although the power is absolute here.) you can contrast this powerlessness with that of children. my kids generally do what i tell them. occasionally, i'll withhold privileges if they don't. i try not to, because a punishment model of discipline is far inferior to a negotiated self-discipline, but sometimes you do what it takes for the easy life. and kids respect it because they are well aware of what they do right and wrong. but mostly kids do what they're told because they agree that you have authority. they don't have to, but generally they do not understand how they could deny it to you. they also don't want to. children recognise that you have broader responsibilities than they do; even if they don't understand the mechanisms of it, they know that you provide food and shelter, and so on. the citizens of a democratic state are somewhat like children and less like zero. we may feel powerless, and our exercise of "power" is mainly restricted to elections that are as meaningless as family conferences. power is much more strongly influenced by pressure on lawmakers and the threat of the mob, which we rarely wield these days, but has been a powerful weapon in the past, gaining us some of the freedom we have today.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

so anyway, some people don't know when to shut the fuck up, so it's time to fisk a forced-pregnancy fanatic. (like the framing? more where that came from, trust me.)

gloves on. let's take this fucker apart.

So I got two basic thoughts on it right now, being as I’m all in favor of life AND liberty and the pursuit of happiness ‘n shit.

so long as that liberty does not extend to being free to do what you choose with your own body and its contents, don's a liberty man.

In other words, does the kid being got rid of have any rights, or is it really just something the mother can get rid of if she chooses, like, I don’t know, a finger.

notice how don frames this discussion. the foetus is a "kid", which is being "got rid of".

i'll give you the answer up front. no. the foetus does not have rights. none at all. that is because it is not a person, and people alone have rights. well, they used to. but rightist arsewits like don extended the rights of a person to corporations so that they could rape the rest of us with impunity.

b-b-but, dr zen, surely the foetus will become a person if you don't callously wipe it off the face of the earth. well yes, but so will every sperm i produce, and every egg in mrs zen's ovaries.

is menstruation genocide? am i committing a masturbation holocaust every time i have one off the wrist?

b-b-but, dr zen, the egg only contains the full potential of a human being when it is fertilised, because only then can it become a human.

yeah, like an acorn. it contains the full potential of an oak, right?

but you note that we don't consider that an acorn is an oak. all things being equal, it might become one. if it entered the soil, remained undisturbed, and was rained on, it might become an oak.

well, you're getting the point, i hope. something has to happen to the fertilised egg for it to become a human. (that something, for those who need a clue, is to be permitted to rest unmolested in a woman's womb for a time.)

anyway, soon -- practically already -- science will be able to create humans from unfertilised eggs. what then?

b-b-but, dr zen, that's unnatural, not what gahd intended.

yeah okay, but so is dialysis. better hope your kidneys hold up.

It won’t grow back but the beauty of a fetus is, even if you do kill it, you can always grow another.

let's do some word analysis, boys and girls.

what does "kill" mean? yes, you, don, at the back there, what do you say it means?

"deprive of life". yes, that's pretty close to its meaning. so for something to be killed, what does it need to have? "a life". yes, don.

does a foetus have a life? well, tell you what, here's a deal we can do. we'll take some foetuses out from the womb at ten weeks and see what happens. if they have a life, they'll be fine, right? they might need some care, but they'll survive. amirite?

clearly, foetuses are in this way like fingers. without the body that nourishes them, they do not "live" very long.

the problem the antichoice brigade have is that they do not distinguish things that are living from things that have a life. tumours live. but they do not have lives. the distinction isn't all that difficult. my blood is living. my dog has a life. are you seeing a difference? one clear one is that one entity is fully independent, and can make choices that direct itself.

eventually, a foetus has something approaching a life. personally, i don't believe a foetus is alive until it pops out, but of course, foetuses are viable beings in the womb after a certain point. if the debate were over late-term foetuses, we would be having a different discussion, one rather more harmonious.

don goes on to say:

Of course, if someone else kills it, say while killing you, they will be prosecuted for two murders, not just one, even in California, and that confuses me.

i'm not sure why (some?) American states have this law on their books. i think it's probably a hangover from pre-Roe days. it's clearly intended to express society's disgust at killing pregnant women. whether we should be disgusted more by that than by the killing of any other type of person is an interesting question, which i will not try to answer here. suffice it to say that this law doesn't really shed any light on the choice debate, not least because most prochoice advocates would wish it struck out of the books, not least so that retarded antichoicers don't try to beat them over the head with it.

Anyway, point is, being pregnant when you don’t want to be is very damn inconvenient.

yes, so let's not burden people with that. end of disc--

oh no, i see it isn't.

Many women have had to dredge up truly heroic proportions of courage to bear a child they have no means to care for.

what the fuck are you talking about?

Others have made the enormously difficult decision to terminate (let us not understate that difficulty!).

as i noted in my previous post, this can be a difficult decision, but it needn't be. you could consider it as simple as getting an ingrown toenail seen to. the implication here is that don doesn't consider this viewpoint valid.why is that, don? let's see:

Choices all round. But we don’t make choices in a vacuum. If we are moral people, we must take into account the consequences our choices have for other people.

hands up those who think don would be willing to argue that pregnant women should not have terminations if the man responsible for knocking them up doesn't want them to?

So the question remains, is the fetus someone with rights, or is it not?

we already answered that. no, it's not.

If you cannot answer that question immediately with unequivocal proof that it is not, then there is doubt, and in every just society I have ever heard of, the benefit of the doubt goes to the living.

what?

well, i have a proposition for you. are you a figment of my imagination or not?

answer it immediately with unequivocal proof, or, if there is doubt, the benefit of the doubt goes to the living. which, since i think you are a figment of my imagination, is me. i get the benefit of the doubt, you are a figment of my imagination, and if i was to axemurder you, i should surely be acquitted by the (imaginary) court because, dude, i get the benefit of the doubt.

see where this sort of sophistry gets you?

"i say a foetus is alive, and you can't prove to my satisfaction that it isn't, so you have to allow the foetus to live."

well, no, dude. i actually only have to prove to my own satisfaction that it's not alive. i don't have to prove it to every last retard on this planet.

and living people do not get teh benefit of teh doubt in Texas, dude. they get executed if the law says so. and there is always a doubt that someone committed a crime they are convicted of, because we do not convict with absolute certainty.

we convict with certainty beyond reasonable doubt. we can apply that standard here because you cannot make any definition of "life" or "personhood" that works for a foetus but would work for actual people without including foetuses. try it. you have to define those terms (succinctly) so that your definition covers foetuses, but does not contain flab that is there solely to define them. good luck with that.

no mentioning gods or other fairy stories btw. god made me do it is not a defence in court and it doesn't wash here either.

of course, "prolife"tards are not really about "life". they mostly couldn't care less about life when it's something possessed by Arabs or criminals, both of whose extermination they are generally willing to see pursued. this has become a cliche of the choice side: the prolifers care about "life" right up to the moment of birth.

what do they care about though? don gets to the crux of the matter:

Besides, a choice was made when a potentially fertile couple chose to have sex. The risk of pregnancy was known. Kind of like the risk of killing someone is known when you start your car while blind drunk. If there’s a predictable consequence, I’m not sure what makes the choice to ignore that consequence so sacred.

yes, guys, pregnancy is a punishment for sex. and how dare those sluts try to escape their punishment, when they know damned well that gahd ordained it as Eve's punishment for not obeying him?

this is the core message of the antichoice movement: women deserve their punishment for sex and should not escape it by having terminations. it's simply another plank in a misogynism that propels the christian (and not so christian) right. these people are scared of women. even when they're women. they want women to be subservient, to know their place, not to want anything, not to have or express ideas. the notion that women desire anything from sex but to be receptacles for man juice horrifies these people. jeezus, if women start negotiating over sex, we'll have to talk about it. we might have to confront what we want.

no wonder don wants women to be punished for that! slap the bitches down with babies, don, before they start making you look at yourself and asking why you find sex so fucking unsatisfactory.

don moves on, having framed his issue. we're now going to talk about privacy:

Self-determination is one thing we all agree is sacred.

do we?

maybe don could have explained what he means by it before making such a bold statement. he certainly didn't, and still doesn't, believe that Iraqis have the right to self-determination. he believed that Americans had the right to do some determining for them.

on the more personal level, what does it even mean? what am i free to determine?

Not everyone believes in natural rights, and I’m not eddicated enough to argue for or against the concept

i don't, and i am.

but I’m sure everyone within reading range agrees that each individual at least has the right to express themselves, to say what they want, to have some control over their own privacy

they have those rights if they are permitted them, don. which is why we fight so hard to maintain them! we know that rights are something you force others to allow you, and they are something that can be taken away by force.

Roe v Wade established a woman’s right to an abortion as an extension of her right to privacy.

no. it ruled that a woman's right to privacy extended to making decisions over her own body. it did not extend the right to privacy at all. it clarified that the right to privacy included the right to choose what to do with your own body.

That pretty much ends the discussion as far as a lot of people are concerned.

yep.

They aren’t going to let the gummint decide something so important

no, dude, we're not. and you know why?

because first they come for our terminations, then they come for our gu^H^H^H^Hsodomists, then it's blowjobs, then it's whether you can have your hair long or short, then it's which god you are permitted to worship, then it's...

well, no. basically, it's just that if you do not have rights over your own person, your other rights are not really worth anything. why would you even need other rights if your person is not inviolate?

though how much they object to gummint having authority over public smoking

harms others.

or gun ownership

harms others.

or marijuana use

should be protected by your right to privacy.

or “hate” speech

harms others.

or control of rents or the sale of sexual services etc. etc.

harms others.

is always to be seen. It appears we all have opinions as to where our privacy really ends and our responsibility to others begins

what?

this isn't rocket science, dude. your right to privacy, in this context, means your rights over your own person. most liberals do not believe you should be coerced to do or refrain from doing anything to do with your own person.

there is a grey area, of course, but it's generally the right--and those who oppose a genuine right to privacy--who want that grey area broadened.

the grey area arises because we mostly agree that you are free to do with your own person anything that does not harm others, but our definitions of "harm others" differ.

some feel that a family man who does smack is harming his family, and that should be prevented. some feel the same about gambling. they argue that your right to your own personal wealth, for instance, is limited because your family, who depend on you, have a claim on it.

but consider these cases:a/ don smokes in his loungeroom and his wife is forced to breathe it inb/ don smokes in the garden and his wife disapproves

does don have the right to smoke? is it covered by his right to privacy?

does don recognise that prscriptions against case a can very easily be extended into proscriptions against case b if we are not vigilant? does he further recognise that these are quite different cases, and that our motivation for proscribing case a is that it directly harms his wife, and we believe the harm done to her is disproportionate to his enjoyment of his right, while for case b, it's simply a matter of opinion?

b-b-but, dr zen, terminating a pregnancy harms the foetus and you've just said that we must prevent harms.

no, i've just said that we have to weigh harms carefully before infringing on people's rights over their own person. this clearly places the benefit of the doubt on the person whose rights are being infringed.

just as i cannot justifiably prevent you from smoking in a train carriage if i cannot show that you harm others by doing it, you cannot justifiably prevent women from having terminations if you cannot show that they harm others by doing it. your philosophical qualms are not evidence in this process, any more than your wife's not liking your smoking is reason for you to stop if you do not choose to.

opinions that differ, because we all differ, because we all come from different backgrounds and have slightly different perspectives on what privacy really means.

as i think is clear from how i've outlined the issue, it's actually our perspective on whether your preferences should be permitted to define my rights over my own person that differs.

In 1973 when Roe v Wade was established, this was in many ways a different country. Rights to privacy and free speech that we take for granted today were not yet established.

i think you'll find that they were established in the constitution, and that they haven't shifted one iota since then.

But they were on the march. Recent years had seen massive movements in defense of free speech

nope. there has been a broadening of the means of expression, not of the right to express yourself, which pretty much remains unchanged, Larry Flynt notwithstanding.

of political opposition, etc.

indeed, one can argue that Congress has worked to stifle political opposition. one notes the motion against MoveOn.org for instance, or Harman's "antiextremism" measure. this movement is more pronounced in the UK, where some types of political expression have been banned outright.

Meanwhile, there were still laws against many consensual sexual acts, against many types of speech we today consider protected, and the last laws against mixed-race marriages were only recently overturned.

and we say hooray for progress, right?

wrong. don says boo:

A momentum had built to relegate all those antiquated laws to history's dustbin. At the same time, the unsafe conditions created by the deadly combination of prejudice against unwed mothers and inadequate abortion facilities had enabled a horrible kind of back-alley slaughter. Scared young women who had exercised their natural rights to sexual activity and wound up pregnant were at risk of being killed by unprofessional abortionists taking advantage of their fear and desperation. Roe v Wade was a natural response to these converging trends. In one stroke, a major blow was made in defense of privacy, of sexual freedom, and of feminine emancipation. What of the child? Well, it was unfortunate, and not everyone agreed that the life was really a life, and in the end privacy concerns trumped the question. I wondered how that was possible, how privacy could be found more important than the question of life, until I remembered more about the early 1970s.

actually, the changes don notes were outcomes of a change in society's mores. it stopped being tenable to oppress blacks, to try to suppress speech and to ban teh gayness because society wouldn't tolerate it. society also would not tolerate the continued illegality of abortion. what don misses is that there's a "because" in here.

it would not tolerate it because it's none of the state's fucking business what you do with your own body. which, yes, trumped "maybe it's alive". mostly because most people realise that if you take a ten-week-old foetus out of the womb, it will die fairly promptly, and even if you are able to keep it alive, it will not "live" in any real sense of the word.

see, eggs grow into babies within the womb. they do so as part of the woman who rears them. we can easily recognise them for what they are: like tumours, they are separate but not divisible from the body that houses them. this is true through much of the pregnancy. we can argue over when it ceases to be true and what the implications of that are, but that's a different question.

b-b-but, dr zen, the foetus is a potential human being. why yes, it is. and i accept that it actually is more so than the sperm i waste when i have a wank.

but when don makes legalistic-sounding arguments about how we err to the side of the living, i strike back with another: we do not err to the side of potential.

we do not say, do not imprison this man because he might find jeezus next week and spend his life doing good works. which might save lives. blah blah.

we err to the living. that's true. but the woman--whom don dismisses as little more than an incubator--is the living being here. she is the person.

don blathers some about marital rape and child abuse. i'll spare you because you don't need to know what he has to say to grasp his message. which is that the seventies were brutal, man, and we wised up, and hey, maybe we could wise up about the baby holocaust that those fucking bitches are indulging in:

Roe v Wade was passed in this atmosphere of respecting privacy. Society has evolved since then, but we still accept Roe v Wade. It’s a complex political issue and as such it is much more difficult to change our attitude towards it than to, say, pass a law requiring teachers to report evidence of abuse. But an entire generation has passed, and in my opinion it may be time, with rationality and compassion, to take another look. Not necessarily to write more restrictive laws, but certainly to reconsider, as we must always do periodically, our underlying assumptions.

to which i say no, never.

we should never let the regressive fuckheads claw this one back. not ever.

Roe was an important step in women's rights. it is part of a framework, a bastion, if you like, that stands against people like don who want to punish women for having sex by forcing pregnancy on them. this is so grossly unjust that we should stand against it.

you should have the right to choose what you do with your own body. in any society that claims to be "free", that should be fundamental.

the right to privacy, in this instance, is about your right not to be bothered with. broadly, we accept that we afford each other the right not to be bothered with just because we suspect each other of doing things we disapprove of. it's more a right to noninterference.

if it helps, consider the right not to be stopped and searched without cause. this is a privacy right. you have the right not to have a tool of the government rifle through your pockets without cause because what's in your pockets is your business. but it's also a right of the person, because you have the right not to be molested without cause. the right to termination of pregnancy is a right of the person in this sense, and a right to privacy in the sense that your body is your private concern, not the concern of the state (although with the recent attention given to obesity, you would be forgiven for thinking you'd recently lost that right).

rights do change. they are not "natural" or "inherent". they are negotiations between individuals and between those individuals and the broader societies they are part of. they change with the times--less so when they are codified, which is one reason people depend so heavily on bills of rights and constitutions, not because they are necessarily models, but because at least they are written down. we all know that a written contract is easier to stand up than a verbal one.

sometimes, they are chiselled away by "reasonable" men; sometimes, they are swept away by bad men; sometimes, through lack of care, they dissolve piece by piece until we wake up and they are gone.

the "debate" don wishes to have would basically take the form of his, and people like him's, demanding that we roll back rights over our own persons. why should we give that a hearing? fuck don and those like him. we should not give them an inch, unless it's of good shoe leather up their backsides.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

choose choice

so anyway, it's the anniversary of Roe vs Wade today (tomorrow for some of you Yankensteins), so those of us who don't think women should be forced to have pregnancies just because Jeebus wants foetuses for sunbeams speak out in our little voices, and those of you whose belief in freedom extends to thinking you should be free to tell other people what to do with their bodies, but not to agreeing that women should be free to make fundamental choices about their health, their futures, their own insides, get to shut the fuck up while we do it.

i have complex feelings about terminations. mrs zen has had one (two, but only one since she has been with me) and i didn't feel good about it. i don't feel anyone got murdered, but i did, and sometimes still do, feel saddened that something potential did not come into being. but many potentials in my life have not eventuated, so my sadness is somewhat capped. i also believe a girlfriend had a termination when i was much younger. i am not sure because she did not tell me. but she hinted somewhat, or rather told me things that led me to believe that she had without necessarily meaning for me to draw that conclusion. i do not feel sad about that at all.

my feelings in both instances are muted though because, i'll be brutally frank, my feelings are of practically no importance in both cases, and i'm acutely aware of that. neither was my choice to make and i'm content that that should be so. of course i discussed it with mrs zen, and i expressed a view, but you can express views without pushing. (indeed, it was something of a relief not to have to choose, because--whatever the forced pregnancy brigade say about women who have unwanted pregnancies--choosing to have a termination is not something that most take lightly; not, i should add, that i think that there is anything wrong with finding it an easy decision--this kind of thing is entirely personal.) i did not want another child, and i said so. mrs zen did not either, and she chose not to continue the pregnancy.

we are in so many ways powerless, all of us ordinary people. and women, even though the world is slowly changing, are at the bottom of the power heap. we can kid ourselves that their increased economic power has catapulted them to equality, but a cursory glance at our world should put us straight. lack of power is most often felt as lack of choice. we do things because we have to most of the time. we have to work so that we can eat and buy consumer goods. we have to obey laws made for and by rich men because we are powerless to disobey them without consequence.

i believe strongly that the antichoice "movement"--by which term i wish to distinguish those who seek to impose their views on all of us from those who believe that abortion is wrong but do not feel that their own preference should be the law--is not about the "life" of foetuses. it is much more an expression of fear at the empowerment of women, and an expression of a continuing belief that women's sexuality should be punished.

i do not believe women should be punished for being sexual. far from it. i wish to encourage them to express their sexual beings. (and ladies, i'm here to help.) nor am i afraid of women's empowerment. when empowerment is about increasing choice, curiously it does not necessarily mean a diminishment of others' power. the increased vibrancy and dynamism of a world in which all have choices tend to increase the power of ordinary men, because we too are in turn presented with broader choices. liberate women and we liberate ourselves. we stop feeling compelled to be their jailers (or keepers, if you prefer), if nothing else, and start to understand that the weight we have lifted from them has also been lifted from us: when power consists in oppressing others, i truly believe it oppresses the oppressor, forcing them into a role that they cannot escape. inability to escape is as bad a form of slavery as you can suffer.

above all, i am willing to entrust women with power. (in general, i'd say i'm happier to empower them than i am to empower men, who have much more difficulty in conceiving of power as something other than a means of ranking each other and holding each other down.) i trust them to make choices because they are not children, not lacking anything; they are fully formed, able and in some ways wiser than us (and in others less wise; we are complements, not competitors, on the whole). i know i am making a good choice in deciding to empower them where i can, because i do trust them.

we must maintain the option to use nuclear weapons against people who have not used them so that we can prevent the spread of nuclear weapons?

that's arse. if i want to prevent the spread of malaria, i don't give people malaria. if i think that Friday nights in town are too violent, i don't suggest to the coppers that they start whacking random people over the head.

does it not occur to these rabid fools that the biggest nuclear danger to the world is them?

we must not use nuclear weapons first. or second. or ever. we should not use them ever. we should die first.

the western moral world went badly wrong in the second world war. we know that, but we have convinced ourselves that only the nazis did wrong, because they were evil and we were good. but "evil", if it's anything, is what you do, not something you are.

the second world war was industrial, and i think that because it was a contest of industrial power, you could argue that bombing of industrial targets was justifiable. of course, that would involve some civilian deaths, but if you believe that war can be justified, you can argue that these deaths are also acceptable.

but there is a huge step between saying that destroying industrial capaciy is acceptable, and collateral damage must be expected, and extending that capacity to include the people who support the industry in the broadest sense, so that finally you believe that to destroy a society's industrial capacity, it is acceptable to destroy that society and all its members.

how, if you are at that point, can you consider yourself any different from the nazis? you have identified Germany and Japan as your enemies without discrimination between one person and the next, and are willing to destroy them. they have identified Jews as their enemy without discrimination between one person and the next, and are willing to destroy them.

we are left with arguing that their motives were bad and ours were good, so it's all okay. i think this allows for a moral ambivalence that is dangerous and rarely productive. it is not part of my moral code. for instance, people argue that striking other human beings is not in itself wrong. if a parent strikes a child, that is not a bad act. if the same parent strikes their nextdoor neighbour, that is a bad act.

i say there is no difference. the bad is in the act, not why you commit it, and i believe that when it comes to the widescale murder of people, it's the same story. i don't care whether you are murdering thousands (or millions) of people because you have declared war on them or because you have declared them your racial enemy. either way, you are committing mass murder.

we should not use nuclear weapons, whatever the alternative is. and i mean whatever it is.

ultimately, if you are moral, you must have a line you won't cross, or will not support the crossing of. if mass murder is not on the other side of the line, what the hell is?

on the minor issue of using "tactical nukes" for more limited purposes, i note that nuclear doctrine was for many years based on the principle that both sides clearly understood that there was an escalation ladder. if the Soviets invaded Germany and attacked the American troops stationed there, the US would use nukes. the Soviets would respond with a strategic strike and the Americans would respond to that with a second strike.

the point is that the American troops were stationed in Germany so that the Americans had an excuse to escalate the conflict up the nuclear ladder.

if you use nuclear weapons, you are saying to your enemy, we are now going nuclear. this was clearly understood. you are saying, nuclear weapons are now in play. and once you have taken that step, you no longer have the moral authority to say that others should not step up the ladder. you created the rules of the game, and now you have to suffer as it plays out.

Monday, January 21, 2008

big day

the thing is, when you go to a festival in the UK, you go because you're into the music. you like the lineup and you're there to see the bands. pretty much. here, the big day out is the only festival-type thing that they have, so young people just go to party. and young Aussies are, i'm sorry to say it, fucktards. their preferred mode of "partying" is to stagger around, drunk or not, and get in each other's faces. well, that might be fun for them, but it's not such fun for people who aren't into staggering around getting in other people's faces. like me. and i find it seriously detracts from enjoying popular music if half the crowd isn't into it, and is pushing its way somewhere else for whatever reason.

the venue is also far too small for this sort of event, with nothing like enough outlets for booze, and a deranged system of ticketing to buy it with, which leads to half the parklands being choked up with people queueing to get a drink. in the UK, you just go to the bar, and that seems to work. of course, a big difference is, in the UK, half the crowd is mashed on drugs. here, a few are smoking pot, but there's no one who's done a trip or e, and not a sign of anyone on the whizz.

it didn't help either that the main stage was split into two stages, to allow the stage to be set up for the next big band while one was playing. this totally doesn't work. you have to have your two main stages at other ends of the venue. what happens is that people arrive early for the band of their choice, and are not going to be there for the band that is playing. this is particularly a problem if you're retarded enough to put Bjork on before Rage against the Machine. it's fair to say that your average Aussie chav is not into Bjork, but Rage, oh yes. Aussies love pub rock and heavy rock, particularly if it has simple-to-grasp lyrics that are easy to sing along with. nearly all the Aussie bands who played were dreary pubrockers, with the exception of Regurgitator, who are heavy but excellent. Quan Yeomans, main Gurger, is truly talented.

so, what were the bands like? Kate Nash sucked arse. she seemed to be enjoying herself but her songwriting is so poor that you just can't enjoy what she's doing. Regurgitator roxxord. they are far and away the best Aussie band of the moment: a mix of cartoonish heavy rock and arch social commentary. i would have preferred a heavier set, because they leaned more to the funkier, Red Hot Chilli Peppersesque end of their material, which the chavs liked, but they were still very good. they were tight, but mostly i felt because half their stuff was on tape, and they were just embellishing the presets. the bassist in particular seemed to be producing a lot of notes for not much plucking. we wanted to see Billy Bragg but he seemed to get swapped with The Nightwatchman, who is Tom Morello of Rage ATM. he was okay, and i have a soft spot for protest singing, but my enjoyment of his set -- wholly acoustic and powerfully delivered -- was coloured by knowing that he is a Hollywood socialist, a rich man who sings about unions without ever, most likely, having belonged to one. still, can't knock a man for having his heart in the right place. Arcade Fire burnt the place down. they were brilliant from the first note, really up there with the best bands i've seen. their songs lend themselves to the live setting, and there are so many of them, doing so many different things, that they make a show just by turning up. the closing sequence of tunnels, power out and rebellion was as good a 15 minutes of live music as you're ever going to witness. like everyone else, they were let down by the terrible, muddy sound -- which seemed to me to be aimed squarely at producing volume and low end for the heavier bands -- but they overcame it by simply being excellent. we caught the last part of Battles, and they were also very good. they played a lot from tape, lacking numbers to re-create the huge sound on their record, and might have been better with more members, but that's a small criticism. their music translated very well to this setting, particularly the low end, which struck m particularly. so to Bjork. well, the bogan crowd didn't much like her, because they'd come to watch Rage, who were playing the split stage after her, and she didn't like them. the problem is that this venue had a D barrier and people had to queue to get into it. so the young lads who came to mosh to rage had to stand through a set by someone they can't understand or appreciate. Bjork would be well advised not to play an Aussie festival again unless she plays last. contrarian as ever, she did not endear herself to the chavs by playing an aficionado's set, heavy on slower ballads, thin on jump-up-and-down numbers. well, i'm an aficionado, so i loved it, but i'd have loved it more in a theatre, with a comfortable seat. i will say though, lest there's any doubt, that Bjork has a wonderful singing voice, as good live as it is on record -- beautifully controlled across her range. the outfit and the backing group of, i don't know how you'd describe them, swan lake with horns were fantastic too. she didn't seem to be enjoying it though. i think she had already had a hard time in Auckland.

finally, i caught most of LCD Soundsystem, who were fantastic, high energy and all in all showmen.

so the final analysis? definitely worth going but never going again. i loved the music, and the opportunity to see so many great bands (although probably fewer than i'd see at a similar day in the UK, because i just don't like pubrock) but i was particularly unhappy that my enjoyment of Bjork, someone whose music and person i rate very highly, was spoiled by people who i wouldn't choose to spend more than five minutes with. also, the ticket price is far too much. 125 bucks is 60 quid, more or less. there just was not enough on for that: not enough bands and not enough (hardly any) side material.

Friday, January 18, 2008

hundreds

so anyway, i was looking at father luke's webpage, and he has one of those hundred things things. and i was thinking, god, you wouldn't even come up with a hundred interesting things about me. because they should be at least interesting in the sense that they wouldn't be things you'd just know about me anyway. like, 67. i am english. ldo. 68. i have brown hair, or did before most of it went grey. 69. i like chicks. 70. i am not scared of cockroaches but i wouldn't eat one.

so what would i even say? i stay in a basement room most of the day, and only go out to allow myself to get thoroughly infuriated by people who probably aren't driving crazily but because i hate them so much i think they are. i love music but i don't have anything close to interesting to say about it. atm it's all postmetal and C86 stuff, although i listened to dry the rain by the beta band in the car and yes, okay, i was bellowing

If there's something inside that you wanna saySay it out loud it'll be okayI will be your light/I will be all right

and it was resonating because i'm feeling okay mostly, although i am haunted by timor mortis, and i want mercy. (google it. it's dull to have to explain everything all the time.)

but i am going home, and that makes me feel good. not today or tomorrow, maybe not this year, but some time, and that's better than never.

and i keep feeling that soon, sooner rather than later anyway, okay, maybe never but at least possibly, i am going to awake and be able to wipe away ten years and i'll be back to the day i felt i could take a new path and i could be that beacon and not drag you down any more. (google that too. dhammapada if you need a clue.)

71. i eat too many sweets. 72. i saw a dead body in the street in delhi and felt a bit guilty because i wasn't moved as much as i thought i ought to be. 73. i can swim but i've never really enjoyed it. and to be honest, the same can be said for a lot of things, which is more of a problem when you think about it than it seems it would be when you haven't thought about it.

so it's not all tears. i am also feeling forgiving, which is an outcome of feeling in need of forgiveness. it's not that i feel i've done anything wrong. no. more that i feel i haven't done enough right.

i don't feel there's any judgement. only your own feeling about who you are and what you're worth. and i know i'm not anything but spinning particles and not worth anything in any size of picture that would have meaning but none of us really feels that way even if we know it's true. so, for instance, if forgave p although i felt she deserved some measure of castigation for her behaviour. but ultimately i like her and you cannot spend your days punishing people for being what they are being when you like what they are being on the whole. they are packages not jigsaws, iykwim. and i will forgive you too if you are someone who needs me to forgive you, because i believe both erring and forgiving are human, and Pope had too much to say about too few scattered thoughts, but that's how eighteenth-century literature actually works.

74. i have a badly misshapen left arm, caused by a severe break when i was a kid. i don't mean it's monstrous. you wouldn't notice it mostly. but it is angled the wrong way and looks weird when you think about it. also, it's quite weak as a consequence, so although i'm tough, i'm not all that strong in the arms. 75. i have never really believed in god except in the same sort of way you believe in santa claus when you're a kid, but i did believe in jesus. and this is why. one time i lost a flask that i had taken out bike riding and i knew my parents would be disappointed, which is a lot worse than angry, and they would not beat me for it, which would have been acceptable, but would have been mean, and i hate to be the cause of meanness. so i told jesus i would believe in him if he let me find it, and i found it, and kept my promise because i keep promises. i will not make you a promise if i do not intend to keep it, and people sometimes wonder why i won't promise things as lightly as they will. 76. i have a smile that would warm your heart but i don't use it much these days. i do laugh quite a lot though. a balance of the two would be better but at least i'm not weeping.

Monday, January 14, 2008

punk is dead

so anyway, i've been watching Punk's not dead, a documentary about the punk scene. it resonates with me because i was a punk then and i'm still one now.

do you ever feel you're the only one who gets it? that's punk. it's not about rebellion, because rebellion says that there can be better. you know, here's a fucking weird thing. if you read the communist manifesto that Marx presented in 1848, you will be surprised to find that nearly all the radical things he was demanding have become part of our societies.

which is a good thing, whatever the greedheads think about Marx. who wasn't much wrong, but then he wasn't providing a blueprint for totalitarianism, whatever people made of it.

i try to convince myself that you all get it, but are just pretending that you don't because it makes life so unbearable. but i give you too much credit because fundamentally i love you and cannot stop.

do you ever feel like you can't belong? well, that's step one.

step two is you don't fucking want to. yeah, and sometimes i do, because there seem to be rewards, and being an outsider can be frustrating, empty, lonely. you are running and wanting everyone to catch up. running, always running.

***

and i was thinking, i fucking hate id cards, fingerprints when you enter the country, censuses. i avoid all that shit because i want the government to leave me alone.

once it stops serving us, it stops being for us. and if it's not for us, it's against us.

***

it looks a lot like hatred, but i think it's always been frustration. hatred doesn't make me angry. it's a cold, hard thing. a dangerous, soulless thing.

i never feel that. i feel frustrated when i feel engaged. i feel like i should fight it, overturn it, undermine it.

i feel that is an expression of love.

***

there are people, i know, who will read this, who think they are better than me. you know who you are. but we are all just apes with big ideas. that's all it is. that's all punk has ever been, knowing that you are never better than the next ape, and if we stopped, got that, we would know happiness that would never end.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

enter

so anyway, we are in the carpark outside Maccas (don't start--my kids are normal, unexceptional kids, and they--Zenella, anyway--likes to go from time to time) and some guy is going you need to watch your door; it's cut into my car.

and i'm thinking what? because i haven't touched the door but then i see that naughtyman is in his seat. and he will fling a door open.

zenita is saying, what's the man saying? and i say, he says he parked his car too near to ours.

he parked his car near to ours? she bellows. is that what you're saying to him?

zenita is a good talker. she's clear as a bell.

don't shout it at him, darling. i wonder whether it's worth bothering to try to explain why people mutter instead of announcing what they're thinking like a town crier, but just don't seems to fit just as well.

and i'm looking at the guy's door, and there's a dint in it, sure enough. but he's inside Maccas and he didn't seem that bothered.

the car shudders and rattles on the way home. it's going to the workshop on Monday. i am glad to be busy at the moment. the car is sounding expensive.

it's what you might call a lemon. a dog. a bomb. if it had been as advertised, what the money i paid for it should have bought, it would have been a decent family car. but it's cost me a pretty penny in repairs. stupid shit mostly, but things that the seller would have known about.

the aircon motor is very loud. it's not supposed to be; aircon is not meant to make a low grinding sound.

the car is sounding prohibitive.

***

so i'm listening to that in rainbows album by radiohead. but the problem is that i've always found them dreary. i know they're supposed to be geniuses, kings of new prog crossover, all that, and i suppose i should like them more, but they write dull songs. i own ok computer, but it's not something i often play. the rest of their albums just haven't appealed. and this album is more of the same. there are a couple of decentish tracks, but they are lost in a morass of studenty whingery.

in comparison, enter by Russian Circles was revelationary. when i first listened to it, i felt i had taken a journey.

that reads a bit, you know, yak, but it didn't stand still, iykwim. a lot of postrock is quite static (floaty, if you like) but Russian Circles do a workout, not pretend to be a chamber quartet.

it's a bit heavier than i normally go in for. by heavy, i mean metal. i'd say it's right on the border, straddling postrock and postmetal. where bands like Mogwai and Mono have a ramped-up "indie" guitar sound (by which i mean they are postpostpunk more than postrock as such), Russian Circles are postMegadeth. or something a bit more crunchy, because the robust powerchording is more heavy rock than power metal.

but the feel is pure postrock. the tunes evolve, shift, engage you then pull you into another mood.

i found them through a prog rock site. i was looking for reviews of God is an Astronaut, and the site had reviews of tons of postrock bands. i suppose postrock is a type of prog. and i realise that i have become enough of a fogey to like the bastard sons of the rock that the punks i idolised blew away. oh well.

God is an Astronaut? when i was a kid, my mum used sometimes to get hold of "meditation" tapes and new-agey music. this was a genre of music you'd never hear of unless you frequented new age shops or got the catalogue from, was it?, Thorsons. it sounded a bit like real music, but with all the peak and trough taken out. God is an Astronaut are exactly like that. the problem is, i think, that the rock guitar begs to kick arse. if you let it kick arse, it becomes superb; it enters its element and does the thing it does best. the jeanmicheljarresque synth that GiaA indulge in does not and cannot kick arse. it barely even tickles arse. so the guitar must be reined in.

reining in the guitar is okay in pop, where the voice reigns. but this is rock, and the voice is someone going aaaaah in...

at this point, a man in southeast brisbane was seen to drift away in a haze. if you thought that the post was going to become more interesting, you are fooling yourself.

enter

so anyway, we are in the carpark outside Maccas (don't start--my kids are normal, unexceptional kids, and they--Zenella, anyway--likes to go from time to time) and some guy is going you need to watch your door; it's cut into my car.

and i'm thinking what? because i haven't touched the door but then i see that naughtyman is in his seat. and he will fling a door open.

zenita is saying, what's the man saying? and i say, he says he parked his car too near to ours.

he parked his car near to ours? she bellows. is that what you're saying to him?

zenita is a good talker. she's clear as a bell.

don't shout it at him, darling. i wonder whether it's worth bothering to try to explain why people mutter instead of announcing what they're thinking like a town crier, but just don't seems to fit just as well.

and i'm looking at the guy's door, and there's a dint in it, sure enough. but he's inside Maccas and he didn't seem that bothered.

the car shudders and rattles on the way home. it's going to the workshop on Monday. i am glad to be busy at the moment. the car is sounding expensive.

it's what you might call a lemon. a dog. a bomb. if it had been as advertised, what the money i paid for it should have bought, it would have been a decent family car. but it's cost me a pretty penny in repairs. stupid shit mostly, but things that the seller would have known about.

the aircon motor is very loud. it's not supposed to be; aircon is not meant to make a low grinding sound.

the car is sounding prohibitive.

***

so i'm listening to that in rainbows album by radiohead. but the problem is that i've always found them dreary. i know they're supposed to be geniuses, kings of new prog crossover, all that, and i suppose i should like them more, but they write dull songs. i own ok computer, but it's not something i often play. the rest of their albums just haven't appealed. and this album is more of the same. there are a couple of decentish tracks, but they are lost in a morass of studenty whingery.

in comparison, enter by Russian Circles was revelationary. when i first listened to it, i felt i had taken a journey.

that reads a bit, you know, yak, but it didn't stand still, iykwim. a lot of postrock is quite static (floaty, if you like) but Russian Circles do a workout, not pretend to be a chamber quartet.

it's a bit heavier than i normally go in for. by heavy, i mean metal. i'd say it's right on the border, straddling postrock and postmetal. where bands like Mogwai and Mono have a ramped-up "indie" guitar sound (by which i mean they are postpostpunk more than postrock as such), Russian Circles are postMegadeth. or something a bit more crunchy, because the robust powerchording is more heavy rock than power metal.

but the feel is pure postrock. the tunes evolve, shift, engage you then pull you into another mood.

i found them through a prog rock site. i was looking for reviews of God is an Astronaut, and the site had reviews of tons of postrock bands. i suppose postrock is a type of prog. and i realise that i have become enough of a fogey to like the bastard sons of the rock that the punks i idolised blew away. oh well.

God is an Astronaut? when i was a kid, my mum used sometimes to get hold of "meditation" tapes and new-agey music. this was a genre of music you'd never hear of unless you frequented new age shops or got the catalogue from, was it?, Thorsons. it sounded a bit like real music, but with all the peak and trough taken out. God is an Astronaut are exactly like that. the problem is, i think, that the rock guitar begs to kick arse. if you let it kick arse, it becomes superb; it enters its element and does the thing it does best. the jeanmicheljarresque synth that GiaA indulge in does not and cannot kick arse. it barely even tickles arse. so the guitar must be reined in.

reining in the guitar is okay in pop, where the voice reigns. but this is rock, and the voice is someone going aaaaah in...

at this point, a man in southeast brisbane was seen to drift away in a haze of cannabis smoke. if you thought that the post was going to become more interesting, you are fooling yourself.

Friday, January 11, 2008

so anyway, one of the points of difference between me and s was that she insisted that nutjobs like Daniel Pipes should be considered reasonable sources of information. here's Pipes, fantasising about Obama being a Mussulman.

Pipes claims that Obama is an apostate (one reason to despise Pipes is that he's fully aware that you cannot be "born a Muslim"; no shahadah, no Musliminess). and Muslims don't like apostates at all. President Musharraf will probably behead Obama at the first opportunity, pace Pipes.

this is all bollocks, of course, but why would a "respected" "academic" like Pipes (for which read "longterm recipient of wingnut welfare") try to smear Obama?

two points spring to mind:

1 Obama has a chance of winning the presidency.2 Obama is not virulently antiPalestinian and has talked vaguely about peace in the Middle East.

Pipes is the kind of ideologue who doesn't care about facts, but merely sees them as pieces to fit to his premade positions, as though he was putting together a political jigsaw (rather than understanding them as things you have to make sense of after you have gathered them). sadly, so was s. i wonder whether he also becomes hysterical when disagreed with?

the deal for Israel? Israel agrees to cosmetic changes in its policy in the West Bank, closes some "outposts", and signs a "peace" treaty with collaborationist Palestinians led by Abu Mazen. in return, either Yanks bomb Iran a bit or they greenlight Israel to do it. added extra: America joins condemnation of Hizbullah and Hamas reprisals, which Israel uses as further excuse for military action in Hamas-supporting areas and perhaps another war against Lebanon.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

it's all good fun. Obama continues to waffle in a way that only Americans could buy.

If we mobilise our voices to challenge the money and influence that stood in our way and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there is no problem we cannot solve, there is no destiny that we cannot fulfill

"If we mobilise our voices"... how do i do that then? i'd like to mobilise my voice. should i record it on a tape and send it by train? obviously it's the people on your side you want to mobilise, and their voices you'd like them to use, but Obama, as is his wont, has portmanteau'd both ideas because it sounds more dramatic.

"challenge ourselves to reach for something better"... one reminds oneself that Obama stands for hugging up to the Republicans. well, that's worked for the Dems, hasn't it?

and how do voices "reach for something better"? someone needs to tell Mr Obama that no one over the age of 12 gets anything by whining for it. action is needed. none of Obama's platform sounds very active to me. it's all "let's just hope", "raise your voice", blah blah.

"there is no problem we cannot solve"... by mobilising our voices? really? how about healthcare? how are you solving that? oh, i know, in precisely the way that "money and influence" would like you to solve it, if solve it you must. the problem with his plan is that corporates don't mind universal insurance. it just means more money pouring into their pockets.

reach for the fucking skies, Barack. dare to dream. put an American NHS on the table.

see? that's revolutionary. that's real change.

and the corporates will water down the oversight and the "regulation" that you propose. you know it, we all know it. it never passes if it's a tight system. we all know that.

"there is no destiny that we cannot fulfill"... what? this is the sort of ultravague, empty bullshit that you get from "motivational" speakers. destinies are fixed, dude. you can only "fulfil" the one you have. that's kind of the point of them.

and there are tons of destinies you couldn't fulfil, even if you were able to choose your own fate. it's fine to say, dream, aim high, blah blah, but this world is real. it smashes dreams. it crushes them, and you have to have somewhere else to go when they're crushed.

this is what Obama is all about: keep it vague, allow people to imprint whatever they want on you. it holds out the promise to the corporates that they can get what they want too; that he's not a serious threat to them. well, i think he probably isn't.

i prefer Clinton. she may not be bringing a beacon of hope; she may be the corporate candidate. yeah, but she knows there's a war on (and i don't mean the phony one on "terror") and she will fight it. Obama has a message of loving the bad boys into our camp. Clinton will bring the hate.

and she outrages all the right people: wingnuts, radical feminists, "progressives" who are really just centre-leftists with no balls, Ron Paul, Jesus.

and yes, there's corporate money behind her and she'll compromise her agenda to keep the money sweet. but short of a revolution, so does anyone in power. it's what you will do even so that counts, and she'll do more in my view.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

well, most American political commentators are centre-rightists, and they adore centrist, let's all hold hands rhetoric. they bought it from Bush, the great uniter, and of course they'll buy it from Obama.

it was over the top, i'll give you that. the usual Obama speech, low on content, high on bluster, and if one analyses it, barely coherent.

this is retarded:

They said this country was too divided; too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.

if Repugs voted for Obama, they would have done so only because they think he's more beatable in the general than Clinton. this sort of "i unite" talk would only apply if he wins the general in a big way.

i doubt anyone will do that.

and the proof of the unity pudding is going to come when Obama tries to get something passed. he'll find out right then how much the Repugs love him. as Edwards notes, if he thinks that all he needs to do is sit down with big oil and big health, and their bought-and-paid-for representatives, and play kissyface with them, he has another think coming. they will fight him all the way. and while they have 40 votes in the Senate, kissyface will not win the day.

You said the time has come to tell the lobbyists who think their money and their influence speak louder than our voices that they don't own this government, we do; and we are here to take it back.

this is just "fuck you, Hillary" though. if people hated lobbyists, they would eschew the whole system, which encourages them. but they don't. Americans worship a constitution that reinforces privilege, that permits a wealthy elite to retain a stranglehold on power, and that allows reactionaries to prevent change too easily.

hilariously, having snatched "i'm a uniter not a divider", Obama goes on to thieve "i still believe in a place called Hope".

but dude, "i hope you stop fucking me soon" is a lovely message, but "if you don't stop fucking me soon, i will shiv you" pays double. it's not "let's all kiss and make up" time now. it's shiv time. they aren't going to stop fucking you just because you ask nicely.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

better to be lucky

so anyway, i'd rather be lucky than good. the things i'm good at have never really done anything for me, because i've lacked the luck (or some other attribute) to make much of them. the only thing i'm good at that i've put to any real use is editing, and i mostly don't bother doing that well. i should make more effort to trying to get work as a manuscript doctor this year: it's something i'd excel at and could make a lot of money at. with luck.

isn't it better to be better than to wish for luck? fuck no.

take poker. i'd rather be twice as lucky as i am than twice as good. i believe that would be enough to make my goal. i probably have average luck just now; i have better days and worse. i play pretty solid, which is good for sngs. if i was twice as lucky, i would easily make 10 percent at the 60s. I'd eight-table them and bob's your ma's bro. i'd do better than that even.

twice as good will also make the money, so i don't mind working on my game. but if you have a rabbit's foot, you know where to send it.

Demand is going up and I think there is a structural problem with the refining sector. There's higher demand for higher-quality products and refineries are simply not up to making those kinds of products.

= the easy oil has gone.

***

so anyway, i wasn't going to bother with this but just in case anyone was thinking Obama is a real alternative, have a read. i guess i feel it's worth mentioning because someone in an email suggested that they would not vote Clinton if she got the nom, but didn't want the Repugs to win.

it pretty much jibes with my feelings about American politics. there is a war. it's not a squabble between two factions, and it can't be resolved by "reaching out" to the people who are crushing the constitution and working to enrich their paymasters.

i strongly endorse Edwards. he is not a revolutionary, not someone who i would choose if i were choosing. but he's the closest to it with a chance. and he understands, or seems to understand, that this is war.

i know that they are all beholden to corporate interests. yes, but some more, some less, yes? Clinton, for all she's painted as a big-money candidate, is better than any of the Repug candidates.

the choice is not between a progressive and a corporatist. it's between shades of bad. and we are not having a friendly chat after that choice is made. we are having a war. that's how America is.

if you value freedom, or if you actually like other people, you will not vote for any of the Repug choices. they are all much more horrible than Clinton, who is, possibly, the worst of the three front-running Dems.

so vote Democrat, whichever Democrat is on offer. vote to stop your country being run by the fascists, lunatics and theocrats who are currently vying with one another to prove they hate people the most. that is, after all, what "conservative" means in this context: it means war, religious persecution, antiliberal legislation, an end to welfare, the destruction of the good America. and if you vote in primaries, vote for someone who will fight. it's war, not a sunday school picnic. pick a leader who understands that.